Contrary to the unpleasant event of hungry cats who would not even eat, the furry animal may possibly begin to show the opposite behavior by consuming more meal than their usual routine. While cats with the unwillingness to eat can drive the owners worried, many would associate their raising urge to eat with a good condition. In addition, cats experiencing this matter may seem normal since they exhibit no sign of any disease. Apparently, it is part of their survival instinct for bearing the pain of the ailment. Unlike the big cat lions that hunt and live in pride, cats are a self-dependent creature that doing the hunt by their own. Unless they suffer a severe illness or injury, they should have to endure the pain if they refuse to become an easy prey.
Unfortunately, either their appetite rises or decreases, the slightest change in cats’ eating habit might imply some problem in regard to their very health. If your cat seems to be ravenous and starts binge eating, you may question yourself whether your cat needs a further treatment or not. Even though it looks subtle, you should recognize the reasons behind the cats who act normal yet eat much than usual. Provided that, you may be able to solve or minimalize the problem from becoming more serious.
1. Psychogenic issues
Before concluding that the cause of excessive eating could relate to any internal disease, it is necessary to check your cats’ mental state first. As the name given, cats having psychogenic issue may find the feeding routine has psychologically affected them. Therefore, the unrestrained behavior encircling the food may follow afterward. The source of this issue can come from the cats’ environment or simply by the food. Sometimes cat owners overlook this and even leave the problem untreated. Therefore, their cats may become overweight and prone to many possible diseases. Despite that, you may possibly take care of the issue once you find the cause. The psychogenic issues can occur on cats when they:
- Don’t know when to stop eating.
Cats are able to measure the amount of food needed by their body. Yet, in some cases, cats may continue to eat even when they are already full. It often happens when the owners are overfeeding their cats. Understand essential nutrients for your cat and serve the meal sufficiently to avoid this problem.
Cats are a solitary hunter, which makes the same as their eating activity. When there is more than one cat in the house, a cat becomes worried about others trying to raid her food. She then ends up swallowing the remaining food, despite the full belly. You can overcome this by giving each cat a separate bowl at a considerable distance. Again, put an adequate amount of food to prevent your cats from overeating. Even though there is portion left in their bowl, you should not give the felines access to food outside the mealtimes.
- Being fed with low nutrient food.
Cats demand enough energy to sustain their strenuous activities. A low-quality food is not able to provide all the necessary nutrients for your pet. Felines would have to consume more to obtain the nutrition needed by their body. The same can be said to cats with many activities. It may be a hard thing to do, but you should know how to supply complete nourishment to your beloved cat.
- Like the taste of the food.
Some cats may find their meal appealing and become addicted to it. It often leads to eating too much of this particular food. You should take the preventive action once you notice your cat has found her favorite meal. You should stop giving her more than she needs, even though she begins to beg and meow repetitively. She may also show this behavior during the time your family eats. Hence, you have to keep her anywhere safe and away from the dining room. It may sound harsh but you wouldn’t want your pet to become obese.
Similar to cats that lack the will to eat, excessive appetite may also be caused by the boredom. This usually occurs in cats who left in a room that has no much activity to do. As the results, they are gradually stressed and choose food as a medium to soothe the unstable mental state. To avoid this problem, give some of your time to play with your cat. If you don’t have enough time, provide some toys or turn one room into an area that can encourage your cat to be active.
Some medicine such as steroids has a side effect that can cause hunger in cats. If your cat’s increased appetite appears near the time she took her medicine, you are likely to have found the source of the problem. It may be not serious though since most effects are temporary.
Cats in their early pregnancy may show an increased appetite. While developing her womb, a female cat would need more nourishment than usual. The signs of pregnant cats might be hard to notice during the first stage. Provided you have marked the signs of pregnancy in your cat, you may be able to supply enough food for both the mother and the future kitten.
2. Diseases
If you find no clue after relating the excessive eating to psychogenic issues, you may suspect that your normal-looking cat is suffering from an underlying disease. Thus, asking a veterinarian to take care of the disease is mainly necessary. Knowing what kind of illness affecting your cat may also help you and the vet to prevent further issues. The diseases below are common to cats who act normal but eating too much.
Parasites such as tapeworms and roundworms can live inside the cats’ intestine and steal all the nutrition within their body. As the result, cats may experience many issues relating to excretion and great hunger that leads to excessive appetite. These parasites are commonly known to enter its host body through the living prey they hunt or from fleas.
Most cats inflicted by worm infection appear to be healthy. Other cats that begin to develop this issue would expose some rice-like or spaghetti-like worms that reside within their feces or near their bottom area. Vets may give some medications to overcome this issue.
Although the reported cases of this disease are below 5%, it is believed that there are more that still uncovered. The early development of diabetes is relatively unseen, but many experts state that eating too much may be the sign of the illness.
Diabetes occurs when the produced insulin cannot balance the amount of glucose (sugar) or there is a malfunction of cats’ body cell that responds to the insulin. Therefore, sugars that cannot enter the cell would result in an insufficient amount of energy, impelling cats to eat and eat again.
Veterinarians may take the urine sample of cats before diagnosing them with diabetes. Once they assure of the disease, vets may supply pet owners the insulin injection and advice them to give it routinely.
This disease often affects adult cats and very subtle at the beginning of the development. The growing appetite commonly accompanies the early stage, while the other signs such as weight loss would follow later.
Hyperthyroidism is caused by the enlargement of the thyroid gland that located in cats’ throat. Hormone thyroxine that produced by the gland has a function to maintain cats’ metabolism. Overly produced thyroxine may cause hunger, breathing problem and other issues to the infected cats. Veterinarians may resort to Surgery or radioactive treatment to overcome the disease.